Child, Lee – The Enemy

‘What died?’

‘My enthusiasm for getting out of bed in the morning.’

‘One bad apple,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t mean much.’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘If it is just one.’

She said nothing.

‘Crowbars,’ I said. ‘We’ve got two separate cases with crowbars,

and I don’t like coincidences. But I can’t see how they can

be connected. There’s no way to join them up. Carbone was a

million miles from Mrs Kramer, in every way imaginable. They

were in completely different worlds.’

‘Vassell and Coomer join them up,’ she said. ‘They had an

interest in something that could have been in Mrs Kramer’s

house, and they were here at Bird the night Carbone was

killed.’

I nodded. ‘That’s what’s driving me crazy. It’s a perfect connection,

except it isn’t. They took one call in D.C., they were too

far from Green Valley to do anything to Mrs Kramer themselves,

and they didn’t call anyone from the hotel. Then they

were here the night Carbone died, but they were in the O Club

with a dozen witnesses the whole time, eating steak and fish.’

‘First time they were here, they had a driver. Major Marshall,

remember? But the second time, they were on their own. That

feels a little clandestine to me. Like they were here for a secret

reason.’

‘Nothing very secret about hanging around in the O Club bar

and then eating in the O Club dining room. They weren’t out of

sight for a minute, all night long.’

‘But why didn’t they have their driver? Why come on their

own? I assume Marshall was at the funeral with them. But they

chose to drive more than three hundred miles by themselves?

And more than three hundred back?’

‘Maybe Marshall was unavailable,’ I said.

‘He’s their blue-eyed boy,’ she said. ‘He’s available when they

say so.’

‘Why did they come here at all? It’s a very long way for a very

average dinner.’

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‘They came for the briefcase, Reacher. Norton’s wrong. She

must be. Someone gave it to them. They left with it.’

‘I don’t think Norton’s wrong. She convinced me.’

‘Then maybe they picked it up in the parking lot. Norton

wouldn’t have seen that. I assume she didn’t go out there in the

cold and wave them off. But they left with it, for sure. Why else

would they be happy to fly back to Germany?’

‘Maybe they just gave up on it. They were due back in

Germany anyway. They couldn’t stay here for ever. They’ve got

Kramer’s command to fight over.’

Summer said nothing.

‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘There’s no possible connection.’

‘It’s a random universe.’

I nodded. ‘So they stay on the back burner. Carbone stays on

the front.’

‘Are we going back out to look for the yogurt pot?’

I shook my head. ‘It’s in the guy’s car, or in his trash.’

‘Could have been useful.’

‘We’ll work with the crowbar instead. It’s brand new. It was

probably bought just as recently as the yogurt was.’

‘We have no resources.’

‘Detective Clark up in Green Valley will do it for us. He’s

already looking for his crowbar, presumably. He’ll be canvassing

hardware stores. We’ll ask him to widen his radius and

stretch his time frame.’

‘That’s a lot of extra work for him.’

I nodded. ‘We’ll have to offer him something. We’ll have to

string him along. We’ll tell him we’re working on something

that might help him.’

‘Like what?’

I smiled. ‘We could fake it. We could give him Andrea

Norton’s name. We could show her exactly what kind of a

family we are.’

I called Detective Clark. I didn’t give him Andrea Norton’s

name..I told him a few lies instead. I told him I recalled

the damage to Mrs Kramer’s door, and the damage to her

head, and that I figured a crowbar was involved, and I told him

that as it happened we had a rash of break-ins at military

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installations all up and down the Eastern seaboard that also

seemed to involve crowbars, and I asked him if we could

piggy-back on the legwork he was undoubtedly already doing

in terms of tracing the Green Valley weapon. He paused at

that point, and I filled the silence by telling him that military